My Dad and the Pawn Shop.

My dad is an interesting fellow. He is over 50 years old. He works for the city. He inspects buildings to make sure they are "up to code". His area is the worst area in the city, Avenue D. But despite dealing with drug dealers, and difficult landlords, and such, sometimes his job pays off.

He recently brought me and my little brother john and his friend Phil to a pawn shop on north clinton. it was called Cash King. We walked in, and an older hispanic man was sitting behind a huge plastic screen, while vcr's tv's, were all piled up along the wall. "Hey Rapheal," my dad says to the guy "how you doin?" My dad goes through a door to the other side and chats with him, while me and john check out some of their amps. This was why we had come. "they got amps" our dad had told us, so we grabbed a bass and jumped in the car. Our eyes inspected every inch of these suckers. There was a big TNT 100, that claimed 150 watts of bass amplification. An there was a keyboard amp that claimed something similar. John had already plugged in his bass to the big one and was laying down some serious funk (causing some other surly looking customers to remark "hell yes. play that sh*!") And well a keyboard amp is just what I need for Ju-Jajuba's material, and Joel will be happy not to play through that acoustic amp anymore. So we gave Dad the "yes we want these amps dad, buy them and we'll pay you back" nod, and my dad starts talking to them about the price. The big bass amp had a sticker on it that said $150. Rapheal looked at me and john, then at the amps, and said "70 bucks, for both". Me and john grinned, said a thousand thanks, and began hauling these monsters out of the store.

Thats just one of the many things my dad can do. He can get get us huge amps from the hood.